How Does A Car Engine Work?
A car engine is an internal combustion petrol engine, which works on a four-stroke technique: intake, compression, power, and exhaust. These four strokes are driven by the pistons, which travel up and down in all of the cylinders of the enbgine. Each one cylinder has its individual intake valve, exhaust valve, spark plug, and piston. Gas comes in from the gasoline tank through the fuel lines, where it mixes with air and then is atomized. The air-fuel mix is what feeds into the cylinders and make them move.
The intake stroke begins when the intake valve of a cylinder opens, letting the air-fuel mix in. The piston travels downward in the cylinder. This downward motion creates a huge vacuum, which improves sucking in the air-fuel mixture.
Both valves are closed while the compression stroke. The piston goes upwards, compressing the air-fuel mix up towards the spark plug. This compression makes the fuel more explosive for easier detonation.
Both valves remain closed for the power stroke. The spark plug ignites the air-fuel mixture. The resulting detonation severely forces the piston downward.
The exhaust stroke starts as the exhaust valve opens. The piston is traveling up again, forcing the left over byproducts of the burned air-fuel mixture out in the exhaust.
The pistons are attached via a piston pin and connecting rod to the crankshaft. The crankshaft is not straight, but has high and low places that help drive alternating pistons up and down. While the power stroke forces two of the pistons in a 4 cylinder engine down, it pushes on the crankshaft, which spins and simultaneously moves up on the other two cylinders pistons. The system is in constant motion, half of the pistons move up as the other half travel down.
The intake and exhaust valves are moved in the same way by the camshaft. The camshaft is also connected by gears to the distributor. Spark plugs are attached to the distributor with plug wires. When the camshaft turns, opening and closing the valves, it as well triggers the distributor, which makes the spark plugs ingnite at the right point in the cycle.
The crankshaft and camshaft are coupled at the face of the engine via a timing chain or belt. This timing chain/belt has to be correctly aligned in order for the system to run in permanent harmony, with perfect timing.
The flywheel is fastened to the back of the crankshaft. While you rotate the key in the ignition, the starter engages the gear on the flywheel. This begins the entire action of the engine. After the cylinders ignite, the engine continuously drives itself with the four-stroke system.
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